The Fool’s Journey: the History, Art, & Symbolism of the Tarot

This is one of the best resources for understanding the Tarot’s mystical symbolism. It includes an updated history based on Place’s The Tarot: History Symbolism and Divination, which “Booklist” said ” may be the best book ever written on . . .the tarot.” This edition adds color illustrations of key works and comparative illustrations from the Renaissance, from alchemical texts, from ancient Egypt, and from occult sources. It views the Tarot as a 500-year visual conversation between artists, mystics, and occultists. The work is based on the 2010 Tarot exhibition at the LA Craft and Folk Art Museum, curated by Place, and includes the Visconti-Sforza Tarot, the 1st Italian printed deck, the oldest Tarot of Marseille, The 1st occult reference, the 1st occult Tarot, the 1st modern Tarot, the 1st New Age Tarot, and examples from popular modern decks including the Twilight Tarot, the Legacy Tarot, the Deviant Moon Tarot, the Annotated Tarot of the Sevenfold Mystery, and Place’s Alchemical Tarot.

The Journey of the Trumps through Historyta Robert Place has done it again! Some people might be asking what is different about this book than his more well known tarot book, The Tarot: History, Symbolism, and Divination. Well let me tell you. Mr Place recently was the curator of an international exhibit on the tarot and that exhibit was the birth place for this book.The opening section is very similar to his previous work, detailing the history and development of the tarot, but in a much more condensed treatment, which may be prerrable to people with less of an interest in the history and development of the tarot.After the first chapter, Mr. Place spends the rest of the book treatining the symbolism and ideas in the major arcana. He uses about 3-5 pages per trump. He typically uses a full page to describe the development of the ideas and the symbolism in that particular trump and uses the remaining 2-4 pages to show numerous examples of the trump, using both historical and modern decks. Mr Place includes his own Alchemical Tarot and the Tarot of the Sevenfold Mystery as well as many other decks, to include: The Marseilles, The Visconti, The Legacy of the Divine, The Deviant Moon, The Fenestra, and many others.The book is a think paperback of good quality. It is primarily a book for people that would like to understand the imagery of each trump in its origin and its development over time with some very nice illustrated (and color) examples. I loved this book.

Absolute Perfection! Initially upon receiving the box containing this book, I was shocked at how light the box felt. I was fully prepared to be disappointed and return the book. I opened the book, and OH MY GOD! Was I ever wrong! The book is large and not too thick, and at first I thought that it should have been smaller and heftier. However upon opening the book my delight could not have been greater! The artist, and author Robert M. Place used this size so that he could feature life sized images of his “Annotated Tarot of the Sevenfold Mystery.” These images are 8 1/2″ by 5 1/2″. Each of the 22 Major Arcana are presented here, magnificently. I had only glimpsed a few images from this tarot , but thankfully had already ordered it…I can hardly wait for it to arrive. my only consolation is that it is as I write this on it’s way to me. Robert M.Price is a genius! After receiving this masterpiece, I also ordered another of his books! i highly recommend this wonderful book to anyone interested in Tarot!

A dissapointment The book contains a well written and a pretty informative chapter about the history of the Tarot and its development through the ages. It also includes explanations of basic Tarot terminology. The book is based on several different decks from different eras and locations. Each chapter presents and explains a different card. This particular card from each deck is also presented in color: two pages from each chapter are dedicated to a visual representation of the card. While a single page of each chapter provides an explanation of this card.Pros: the book is printed on a high quality paper, the images are beautiful and the size of the font is pleasant to the eye. You can see how the cards changed through time and location.Cons: The information about each card is very poor. It basically says: in this deck it was presented by X, while in that deck it was presented by Y. It’s not clear what influenced the change, how it affects the divination process, what is the symbolical meaning of the new and old representations. As the book is called “The Fool’s Journey: the History, Art, & Symbolism of the Tarot” – I expected to find there deeper meanings of the Tarot symbolism. Unfortunately, I was very disappointment.The connections between the cards are not explained. As the “Fool’s journey” is basically a story that connects all the cards into a life journey, I expected (from the title and the price) a deeper explanation of that journey.If you want to have a book that presents different decks, some of which are available only in museums: buy this book. But if you would like to learn more and to develop your divinatory abilities – for this price you would find more informative books.I will be selling mine, it’s useless for me.